U.S. hate crime bills/laws - 2009

More negative reactions
to the bill/law

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Negative reaction to the bill (Cont'd):

Senator Jim DeMint, (R-SC) expressed his concern about what he thinks law
may do to people of faith. He asked:

"Can priests, pastors and rabbis be sure their preaching will not be
prosecuted if it says certain things are right and wrong? Or will this
provision serve as a warning to people not to speak out too loudly about their
religious views, lest federal agents come knocking at their door?" 1

Barrett Duke of The Ethics & Religious Liberty
Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention interpreted the bill as a "gay hate crimes bill" that represents an "assault on evangelical belief." Duke writes:

"With the House and Senate passage of the hate-crimes bill, liberals in
Congress made further progress in their effort to normalize homosexual
behavior in the United States. The bill extends special federal protections to
homosexuals that are not available to most Americans."

He appears to be unaware that the bill protects every American in eight
ways -- on the basis of their race, religion, color, nationality, sexual
orientation, disability, gender identity and gender.

He wrote:

"Congress has just extended special protections to homosexuals that are not
available to most other Americans."

We are at a total loss trying to interpret this sentence. The bill provides
protection from hate crimes to every American on the basis of their sexual
orientation, whether they be heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual. We have
filled out the "contact us" section of the ERLC asking for clarification.
As expected, we did not receive a response to our request or acknowledgment
of its receipt.

Duke expressed concern for:

"... the bill's potential for chilling religious speech regarding
homosexuality. The hate-crimes language creates the potential for federal
prosecution of anyone whose speech incites an act of violence against
someone who is, or is perceived to be, homosexual."

This claim would be far more convincing if he had cited one case of
prosecution for hate speech in the past four decades where a similar bill protected people on
the basis of religion, color, race and nationality.

He expressed concern over the bill's "...chilling effect on religious
speech regarding homosexuality." Actually, if there materializes any chilling
effect, it would involve speech intended to incite random violence against
homosexuals.

On a positive note, he concludes: "Whether or not these possibilities
become realities is yet to be seen." At least he holds open the possibility
that his fears will not materialize. Other conservative commentators have
assumed that persecution of pastors for reading the
clobber passages in the Bible are inevitable. 2

Negative reaction after the bill was signed into
law:

The basic theme cited by many people who are opposed to the law is that
hate crime law will criminalize hate speech, particularly hate
speech directed against gays and lesbians. This is in spite of the amendment
that was added to the bill to offer additional protection for those who want
to disseminate hate speech.

Pat Robertson commented on his TV program:

"What about a law that says it?s a federal crime to attack somebody because of
his religious beliefs? Not a chance!"

He apparently is unaware that religion is one of the eight groups protected
under this law, and in the preceding law that has been in place for decade.

Later, he commented:

"... the noose has tightened around the necks of Christians to keep them from
speaking out on certain moral issues. And it all was embodied in something
called the hate crimes bill that President Obama said was a major victory for
America. I?m not sure whether America was the beneficiary. ... We have voted
into office a group of people who are opposed to many of the fundamental
Christian beliefs of our nation. And they hold to radical ideology, and they
are beginning put people sharing their points of view into high office. ...
People who are standing for religious values -- time honored biblical values
of our nation -- are being hooted down. ... until the liberties we have
enjoyed aren't there any longer." 3,4

Rev. Gerald Kieschnick, president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod,
said:

"I will be watching closely for any possible infringement on the rights of our
members and pastors to speak out against the sin of homosexuality based on the
Word of God. In the days ahead, we may face persecution because of our
pronouncement of the truths of Holy Scripture." 5

McCoy, pastor of Canaan Baptist Church in St. Louis and president
of the Missouri Baptist Convention said:

"I will contend that tone of voice says a lot. When one hears that they're
doing wrong from someone who cares for their soul, it's hard to call that hate
speech. ... [Congress] can write the laws they wish, but it's not going to
affect what I preach and how I preach it. However, I will also tell you I
don't believe the way that I preach the word of God that speaks against such
sin makes people think I take any joy in pointing any fingers at anyone." 5

Total count of criminal charges or convictions for hate speech remains
zero:

President Obama signed the hate crimes bill into law on 2009-OCT-28, thus
creating the first major federal civil rights
legislation to protect every American from physical attacks on the basis of their sexual orientation or
gender identity. Many social and religious conservatives were concerned that
people will be charged under this hate crimes law for uttering
hate speech, even though the law specifically guarantees
freedom of hate speech.

We have decided to revisit this concern regularly and report any such charges
if they were to occur.

As of 2010-JAN-27, three months have passed since the signing of the bill. If
the fears of social and religious conservatives were valid, one would expect at
least a few such charges by now. However, to our knowledge, no charges for hate
speech have been laid under this hate crimes law. We
are confident that none have actually been laid, because if one were, every
conservative Christian news source would be certain to report the event.

On 2010-JAN-23, the morning's mailing from the Family Research Council
-- a fundamentalist Christian offshoot of Focus on the Family -- seems
to have dropped any concern for the hate-speech implications of the hate-crimes
bill. They
warned of a liberal legislative attack on what they describe as Christian values over the
following 120
days. They predict four pieces of legislation will pass:

An end to "Don't Ask,
Don't Tell" in the military so that persons of all sexual orientations will
be able to serve openly,

An end to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, so that
same-sex married couples could obtain the same benefits as opposite-sex married couples, and

Allowing freedom of speech on the radio by passing a "Localism"
doctrine that they don't define.

Author comment: About the future: (Bias
alert!)

One of the really ironic consequences of this law may not
have been anticipated by its supporters.

Fundamentalist and other evangelical Christian news sources have been
unified in their fear-based coverage of this bill. They have predicted that
pastors and any other Christian expressing hate speech targeting
lesbians and gays may be arrested under this law. This, of course, is most
unlikely to happen. After all, this bill merely doubles the protected groups
that were covered by a very similar earlier law that has been on the books for
decades, and nobody has been charged under that law for hate speech. We
have heard a fundamentalist teleminister call for stoning
Neopagans to death. We have heard of a Baptist
minister in Texas calling on the U.S. Army to napalm
Wiccans to death. Neither was charged with any crime. If advocating
genocide won't get a pastor charged, certainly ordinary denigration of LGBT
people will not either.

Many conservative Christians now fear being charged under this new law for
inciting violence or for conspiracy to commit assault. The end result is that
they might become so frightened of this law that many may carefully avoid
expressing hate speech directed against LGBT people. Thus, hate
speech might become less frequent, even as the law performs its intended
task by reducing violent hate crime based on race, color, nationality,
religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation and disability.

Under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, a hate speech
law would be unconstitutional. But this new hate crimes law may well
have the effect of a hate speech law That is a great development. We
can benefit from a great reduction of hate in the American culture. I think that Jesus
would be happy.

Although there is no real possibility that anyone will be prosecuted for hate
speech under this hate crime law, a little cooling off of the
rhetoric can only improve society and the quest of LGBT people for equality
and dignity.

What troubles me is that concern over religious freedom of belief has
morphed in recent years into concern over the religious freedom to direct hate
speech against women and minorities. I long for the days when religious
freedom meant allowing people to hold beliefs without oppression. Now
religious freedom has become the freedom to attack, denigrate and humiliate
others.

We have owned a series of Palm Pilot PDAs down through the years which have
been essentially useless because we have never been able to download files
from our PC to the PDA reliably. We tried on a variety of PCs and operating
systems and PDAs, without any luck. But they do have an excellent calendar
program that runs on the PC and is supplied with the PDA. I plan to set it up
to send me a reminder once a quarter to search out any charges under this law
of persons who have not directly committed a hate-based violent act. If
we find any, we will be certain to report them on this website.

References used:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above
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